This invention relates generally to a system for heat transfer and more particularly, to the thermal management of an electronic system.
Electronic assemblies tend to generate varying levels of heat. If left unchecked, component overheating may affect performance or even cause failure of the electronic components. For relatively, low-power systems, air cooling and heat sink techniques often adequately maintain lower operating temperatures for electronic components. Applications that employ high power electronic components often require more effective methods such as liquid cooling. For example, high power electronic devices are commonly cooled through the use of a cold plate in thermal contact with the electronic devices. A cooling fluid circulates through the cold plate to draw heat away from the cold plate.
With the reduction in size of electronic devices, modern electronic systems have a greater quantity of electronic components within the same area as previous systems. This creates power dense electronic systems having an increased heat per unit volume output. Consequently, heat dissipation is an important design constraint and a need exists to cool these high powered electronic boxes efficiently. Additionally, loads on existing vehicle thermal management systems are growing due to retrofits of higher power electronic components and systems. By enabling the increase of coolant flow temperatures supplied by thermal management systems, existing cooling infrastructures are able to transport greater quantities of heat without significantly revamping the systems.